“Not quite, my father,” replied the Zulu, “but he cannot live, the evil men have shot him through the chest.” Winfield, as Amaxosa said this, opened his eyes, coughed up some blood, then faintly asked for water; and after receiving this, spoke very feebly to Grenville.
“Thank you for trying to save me, but you were a second too late this time—you have saved my life so often, and I hoped to live to save yours; and now let me say good-bye to Dora, for I am going, going fast;” and again he coughed up great streams of blood.
Leigh broke the awful calamity as gently as possible to the poor girl, and a moment later she sat with her father’s head upon her knee, with the scalding tears running pitifully down her cheeks, and in her heart the awful knowledge that in a few short minutes she would lose the only parent she had, and who was dear to her beyond anything else upon earth.
The end was coming fast; poor Winfield could only whisper, “If you ever get away from here, go home to England, my darling. Oh! how shall I leave you in the hands of strangers. Gentlemen, God be with you as you are kind to my friendless little girl.”
“Not friendless, old fellow,” said Leigh, kneeling beside him. “Winfield, will you give Dora to me? I love her very dearly.”
The poor fellow gazed fixedly at Leigh, then at his daughter, who smiled through her tears at him who had so boldly claimed her without even having asked her consent to the bargain. Leigh held out his hand.
“Won’t you say yes, darling?”
“Oh! yes, yes,” she sobbed, taking his hand for one brief instant.
Winfield smiled feebly.
“God bless you both, my children;” then with a wild choking cry, “Dora, my child, where are you? All grows dark with me, and I go—I go to her I love. Yes, my own sweet wife, I come—at last;” and choked by another awful rush of blood, poor Jack Winfield fell dead.